The Scar
by SparrowWriter
Summary: These are six alternate endings to the HP series, all based on the rumour that the last word will be "scar." All are completely different realities, not continuations of one another. Please read and review!
1. Ending One

"Go ahead." Ron nudged his best friend jokingly. "I dare you." Harry darted his eyes to the empty hall, peering at the newly put up decorations and the colourful banner sporting "Goodbye Seventh Years." Obviously unsure, Harry gave his friend an uneasy stare.   
  
"You know what Hermione would say to this," Harry murmured warningly. He raised his voice to a girlish tone and waved his finger in the air mockingly. "'You'll get expelled.'" He brought his voice back down to a low whisper. "And, y'know, she's right. We'd get in huge trouble if McGonagall caught us jinxing the Slytherin's chairs. And at the feast...you know Malfoy'll do something dreadful to us if he knew I'd done it."   
  
"We can't GET expelled," Ron reasoned, pushing him forward once more. "We've already GRADUATED. And anyway, you're a better wizard than Malfoy is, a hundred times so. You could give him jelly legs before the fool whipped out his wand. And if you'd just move it and get out there already, no one will be anywhere near the hall. Everyone's out in Hogsmeade for an hour yet."   
  
Harry let out a deep breath. "OK, Weasley, I'll do it." He seized his wand, pulse quickening slightly, and stepped into the hall. Nearing the Slytherin table, Harry tapped his wand on every chair, adjusting each in a low whisper to kick off anyone who dared to sit. It was a dumb prank, and he knew it, but he'd do anything to humour Ron at the end of this year. It'd been really hard for him since what had happened to Ginny...   
  
"What a pleasant surprise," a low voice growled behind him. Harry froze in place, then slowly turned to face what had addressed him. A tall, slouching man dressed in a long black cloak stood, a firm grasp on his wand a smirk on the shadowed face. "Of course," he murmured, twirling his wand and chuckling. "I'm no stranger to surprises. I would have never thought that Muggle-lover of a headmaster would put up a fair fight. A vain one, however..."   
  
"Voldemort," the young boy's voice trembled with hate and his wand was poised at his side readily. "You - at Hogwarts..." The last words barely squeezed through when Harry's mind began to process all the terrible ways he could have gotten into the school and then to the even more terrible things he could do now that he was there.   
  
Harry heard a rush of footsteps behind him as well as an angry burst of breaths and curses. Ron, his hair tousled and his eyes wild, had his wand thrusted out, his face red. "You will not have any more destruction. None." Ron's words burst with fiery hate and he hissed them between clenched teeth. "I will not give you the privelige to breathe my air for another moment. Ava-"   
  
"-da Kadavara!" Voldemort finished, a split second before his opponent. Harry saw the flash of light go by in an almost slow motion movement. Just as the curse was about to meet his friend's forehead, Harry dove in front of Ron and took the blow. Instantly, he hit the ground, drained of life, as the last traces of the curse hit Ron painlessly. Ron's curse, however, had effectively made its target, and the Dark Lord was wilted upon the floor. Ron let out a few scared gasps, and put his hand to his forehead fearfully. There, burning with red hot fury, was a lightning-shaped scar.  



	2. Ending Two

"Harry drew out his wand and fixed Voldemort with a piercing stare. It would be over in a moment. In seconds, the Dark Lord would finally be dead. Or would he be? 'I'm not afraid of you, Riddle,' Harry murmured boldly, 'Not anymore.' But just as the words of the killing curse were about to come out of his mouth..."  
  
"Jo!" 11-year-old Joanne Rowling's head shot up. Her eyes met the teacher's, and the anger in them made her heart sink. She had been mindlessly writing in class - again, and wasn't quite ready for the punishment her new professor would launch. But her story - her epic - was almost complete...Joanne promised herself that someday, perhaps, she could release her story to the world. But not yet. Not for a while yet.  
  
"Joanne," Professor Potter looked across the room to the girl, but what she didn't not recognize that instead of anger, he was showing amusement. He stepped toward her desk, hiding a smile. "What are you at now, Jo? Writing?" He eased the story from her grasp as she cringed with the loss of her masterpiece. "I'm going to read this, Jo..." He flipped through the loosely paper-clipped pages curiously. "Just to make sure it's suitable for working on in valuable class time." Joanne looked up at the teacher wide-eyed. So she wasn't in trouble? The sweat welling on her forehead with fear went dry. She sat back, hoping she would have her story back soon.   
  
And she did...Three weeks later, she found her story, now neatly stapled, sitting upon her desk. The teacher uttered a few words, too amazed to really speak. "Very good, Joanne...But you know it's only fantasy..." And as her professor turned away, from beneath his tousled jet-black hair, Joanne saw the hint of a familiar-shaped scar... 


	3. Ending Three

"Wormtail" whispered Harry, talking through angry clenched teeth. Old, gray eyes stared into his green ones, sending a chill through his heart with the pure hatred in both. Harry set his wand to the old man's throat, not planning to kill, but only to threaten the cowardly fool so he would know the power running through his rough 17-year-old veins. "Tell me Pettigrew; tell me your last request before I hand you into Azkaban; to the dementors; where you truly belong. Your master is gone, there is no one to protect you now."   
  
Tears flowed down Wormtail's face; his graying hair falling across his face pitifully. "I-I'm not Pettigrew" he spat out pitifully. Harry gave him a suspicious glance. "Indeed, Peter was killed that day when Black was arrested. But neither man commited the crime." Harry's eyes widened; what was he talking about?   
  
"I went to Hogwarts long after both...I am much younger...Through the years, I learned how to play with time; how to turn into another man. But one time, in disguise as Peter Pettigrew, I could never turn back, much as I tried. But with losing my own identity, I gained his, and found myself able to turn into a rat."   
  
Harry pushed his glasses up; peering at the man with a mixture of confusion and hatred. "My mind became weak; soon I even thought I was Peter; and thus the Marauder's Map sensed this and named me as he. Before I turned to the late Dark Lord; I had lost all hope in myself, and knew I could never amount to anything else."   
  
"Who are you then?" Harry spat, still feeling skeptical and frightened.   
  
"Oh, Harry" he sobbed, pounding the floor in earnest sadness. "You see, some things never changed in my transformation. Physical attributes; birthmarks and the like. Oh, Harry!" he repeated; and parted his gray hair to display a lightning bolt shaped scar....  



	4. Ending Four

Harry shrugged his bookbag onto his shoulder, exasperated. After the final potions exam, sleep had threatened to seize him all throughout the next three classes. Ever since Hermione had been accepted to the Young Witches Academy for the Incredibly Gifted, Harry had assumed the role of the resident know-it-all, which was not at all a pleasant one. "Hey, Harry!" a familiar voice called from behind him; he felt a hand tap his shoulder.   
  
"Ron," Harry acknowledged, letting out a large yawn.  
  
"Yeah," Ron continued cheerfully; his exams had been canceled when he'd attended his brother Percy's wedding. "Poor Penelope," he had noted, chuckling in the back row with the twins. "Having to marry Weatherby."   
  
"I can't believe you get to graduate!" remarked Ginny, closely following the friends on their way to the Great Hall. "And me, with a whole entire year ahead!"  
  
Her brother laughed. "At least you get to stay with Colin...." Ginny turned pink.  
  
They slowly walked into the Hall, where it was very dark. "Hullo!" Ron called in, able to see no one in the dim light. "Well, Harry, I don't think it's my birthday, so who are they throwing this surprise party for?"  
  
Harry had a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Er, Ron, I don't think this is a good thing..." He couldn't see anyone, but he had a strange feeling they could see him.  
  
"Fred! George!" Ron called in, ignoring Harry's comment. "It really isn't funny anymore, come out you guys."  
  
Ginny shook. "Di-did you feel that?" Both boys did. A chill, known all too well to them, passed over the trio. "But You-Know-Who is d-dead." Even in the Dark Lord's departure, still no one could bring themselves to say his name.   
  
"But who - all the Death Eaters are in Azkaban, who could be here?" Ron's voice was a whisper, his heart beating like a drum in his chest. Harry shook his head, completely clueless to whom had caused the dreadful lull only created by Voldemort or his followers.  
  
A piercing laugh rang through the horrid silence. "Harry, I just can't see how you didn't figure it out. You, the cleverest wizard in your year. You, who defeated the Dark Lord and his precious servant. You," the voice, which strangely familiar, but not quite placeable, "the Heir of Godric Gryffindor. And I, the last living one of Slytherin. I, the only one Voldemort feared. I, the son of Elizabeth Slytherin, have conquered with my wit and my strength. With my disguise."   
  
The shadowy figure of Albus Dumbledore appeared at the end of the hall, and Harry felt a searing pain in his scar.  



	5. Ending Five

Dumbledore sat at the end of the faculty table, peering across the students fondly. "Today" he began, his voice deep and rumbling. "We toast Harry Potter." All the students, including Malfoy, stood quietly and stared into the old Headmaster's eyes. "Many think of him as the boy who defeated Lord Voldemort, the boy who lead to the Dark Lord's destruction." No one cringed at the name anymore, for it was only a harmless word, and that it could never surpass the terror all the students had faced. Nothing could.   
  
"But it was not Potter who destroyed him," Dumbledore continued, his voice solemn and melancholy. "It was Voldemort who brought his own downfall. It was Voldemort who fell prey to the evil inside himself. Harry only seized this weakness, used bravery and skill, and is the reason we toast such a boy tonight. Your only enemy is of self; your only enemy is the evil in your own heart. Harry knew that in destroying the Dark Lord, he would destroy himself, but to rid the world of such an evil was his only goal." Hermione and Ron were both silent, but tears dripped down their faces just to think of their lost friend. And, for the first time anyone could truly remember, Dumbledore was crying too.   
  
"But in death, we must renew life," murmured the Headmaster, giving the students a meaningful glance. "I am old and weary, of this there is no doubt, so I give my place as headmaster to Miss Hermione Granger, who is clever and bold enough to take the job." She nodded slowly, knowing that Harry instead should be headmaster, and not her. "Today," he repeated, raising his goblet slowly, "we toast Harry Potter, who is so much more than just the boy with the lightning bolt scar."   
  
  



	6. Ending Six

"Ron!" Harry called into the dead of night. Cold enveloped him like a fearful mist, and now, it seemed, he could never feel warmth again. "Ron!" he choked out his friend's name in the frightening silence. "Ronald Weasley, where are you?" Silence. Harry blinked back the tears threatining to flood his pale face.   
  
Hagrid's hut - quite desolate without it's owner's familiar sparkle - stood like a fortress at the foot of the Forbidden Forest. A flash of lightning struck the sky, illuminating a tousled figure sprawled under one of the windows. It sent a flash of red. Not the red of blood he had seen all too often this night, but a red that would be stuck in his mind for eternity.   
  
Harry gaped incredulously at the sadly familiar fiery hair; the once flushed and happy face, now quite pale; and, of course, the blank, colourless eyes once so vibrant. Was this the Ron he'd played chess with - and lost - so many times? Was this the Ron who cheered him on at Quidditch, though secretly he wished to be the one on the broomstick? Was this the Ron - who through fights and disagreements - would always be his true best friend?   
  
Harry's eyes shot open; he grabbed his scar in pain...Why must this taunt him every night, why must the murder of Ron affect him as if he were the murderer? Each night, in horrific realism, he would go through that fateful night in his mind, but each time it ended the same. He had to face it...Ron was dead, and there was nothing he could do to change it.   
  
Graduation day was upon him already, he realized, after 7 strange years it was finally ending. The dreams, though taunting his sleep and even his awake state, were not to be thought of from now on, he was to go on and continue life, no matter how painful it might seem. He slowly walked into the Gryffindor common room, where Hermione was peering into a book.   
  
"Ah," she murmured, looking up from the text, "did you have that dream again?" Harry nodded; Hermione seemed to be able to read his moods. As the only person who cared for Ron as much he did, memories struck her often as well.   
  
"Harry, you must know by now that with every triumph there is tragedy." He saw the binding of the book Hermione was reading; it was a photo album from the Quidditch World Cup. "You have defeated the Dark Lord, but a precious friend was taken from you. With every new day there is a new challenge...With everything that is healed," she whispered, putting a finger on his forehead, "there is always a scar."  
  



End file.
